Time Aggravates Some Wounds
by CatalyticConverstion
Summary: Bumblebee returns to Earth, excited to spent time with his best friend Sari, whom he hasn't seen in nearly ten years. But Sari has grown up and doesn't have the time to fool around with videogames and racing. Will Bumblebee be able to help Sari deal with the pressures of running her father's business, or has Sari already found another source to cope with her unhappiness?
1. Chapter 1

The characters in this story are property of Hasbro.

* * *

Ten stellar cycles.

Ten whole stellar cycles since they had defeated Megatron, saved Earth, and retrieved the Allspark. Ten stellar cycles of the hero treatment, promotions to the elite guard, and finally getting the respect that they deserved. Ten stellar cycles wasn't long in a Cybertronian's life, but it had felt like forever to Bumblebee. Because ten stellar cycles ago, she had returned to Earth. She had wanted to stay on Cybertron and learn all about their history, and Bumblebee would have been excited to teach her, even about the really boring stuff that he always fell into recharge when the tutorbots would lecture. But she always seemed so interested in everything Cybertronian that he would have happily taken her to every dull, boring museum that he could find in Iacon.

But she had only been on Cybertron for a deca-cylce when a communication form Earth came through from her father. He was sick, really sick. It had something to do to with radiation and poisoning, apparently humans are sensitive to even low levels of certain radiations. Ratchet had tried to explain it all to him, but he got bored half way through the explanation and ended up getting yelled out of the med-bay for messing with the medical tools. What he did get from the explanation though was the Earth doctors suspected that he had been exposed when he was being held captive by Megatron. They didn't think that he had long to live. Jazz said she had cried on the entire journey back to Earth. He had wanted to go with her, but he had new responsibilities as an elite guard and she made him promise that he wouldn't give up his life's dream for her. He had agreed to stay behind, but regretted it ever since.

After they had returned to Cybertron, Ultra Magnus had assigned a group to guard Earth against any remaining Decepticons and open communications between Cybertron and Earth. But she didn't know these Protectobots and didn't have any human friends on the entire planet. He would never forgive himself when she had to watch her father die all by herself.

She told him that her father had fixed his will so that she wouldn't have any problems taking over the business, and even though she had some trouble with the government, being underage even in her upgraded form, she was eventually able to take complete control of the business. She had told him about all of her struggles in the deca-cylce communications that the Protectobots forwarded to him, and he did his best to help when he could, but he was never really good at any of that business type of stuff, which she knew after that time he had tried to be her secretary.

Every deca-cylce he couldn't wait to hear from her, even when all she talked about was meetings with the Board members and dealing with getting the newest nanite cream approved by the FDA. But he would always respond excitedly, telling her all about his awesome work in the elite guard, even when his work was mainly just more boring monitor duty like he did on Earth minus the actual chance of getting to fight Decepticons. So, he might have exaggerated on how exciting begin elite guard was just a little. But after about a stellar cycle she started to forget about their deca-cylce communications. She began replying every other deca-cylce, then every forth deca-cyle, then every eighth deca-cycle, and each time her communications got shorter and shorter and included less and less information about her private life. Eventually, she stopped communicating at all.

He had asked the Protectobot leader, Hot Spot, to check on her, but all he said was that she was busy with her business and otherwise doing fine.

But all that wouldn't matter after today, because today he was returning to Earth. It was the first time that any of the original team had returned to Earth, and he was so excited that he couldn't stop himself from moving around. The small transport shuttle's captain had yelled at him several times and now he was confined under threat of dismemberment to the tiny guest room that he shared with Ratchet, who was returning to Earth with him, until the ship landed. But he knew they would be landing soon, because he could see the telltale blue sky of Earth outside the porthole window above his bunk. This only caused him to pace and fidget more.

It would only be a matter of cycles until they finally landed and he would see her again, and then everything would be great. He'd apologize about not being there for so many stellar cycles and take her to the biggest videogame store in the city and they would buy the latest videogames and speed all night playing and then everything would be just like it had been before. They would go racing and listen to loud music and do anything and everything that she could possible think of.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the jolt of the landing gear impacting and the artificial gravity disengaging as Earth's natural gravity took over. In an astrosconed he was out of the tiny room, down the hall, and at the exit hatch before the door had even began to open. Everyone else was already assembled and Ratchet glared sideways at him as he didn't stop quite fast enough and, to avoid colliding with the grumpy old bot, had to fall sideways into a pile of cargo boxes, which only caused the captain to yell at him some more, but he couldn't see what the problem was, he didn't even dent the crates that much. Those two must have been formed from the same mold.

But he lost that train of thought as the hydraulic hiss of the door opening could be heard through the cargo bay, and the hatch lowered to revel the tiny flashes of cameras from the large grouping of humans who were being held back by Policebots. The strange humidity of the planet reached his sensors first; and then he could hear the shouts of the gathered crowd. The sky was as crystal clear blue as he remembered and the city still smelled of car exhaust and organic matter. Everything was the same as he had left it, and he had the overwhelming sensation that he was finally coming home.

Sure he was a Cybertronian. Built on Cybertron, programmed on Cybertron, and now hero of Cybertron, but this was where he truly belonged, because this is where she was.

Earth.

He was finally here; he was finally going to see her again.

Just wait Sari, I'm coming.


	2. Chapter 2

This story was inspired by MamonnA's Sari sketches 01. A link to the picture can be found in my profile.

* * *

The traffic was terrible.

That was all that Sari could think as the car finally pulled up in front of Sumdac Tower. The company had grown quite large under her tutelage, but she still liked to have her office at the top of the sparkplug shaped tower that her father had built so long ago, even if she couldn't stand to live there anymore. She couldn't see what was so exciting about yet another cargo ship arriving from Cybertron. Of course she had heard that some of the original Earth team was on the shuttle, just as everyone else in the world apparently had. In fact she knew exactly who was on that ship, having received an update from Hot Spot personally and even a communication from Bumblebee, which she had yet time to read.

But none of that excused her being two hours late to the office, especially having left an hour earlier than usual specifically because she knew that the traffic was bad anytime a cargo ship landed in the city. She was forced to reschedule her morning meeting with the manufacturing company from China that she had been pushing to get for several months now. If she lost this multimillion dollar contract because of traffic, she would hold those Autobots personally responsible.

The Chauffeur-Bot brought the car to a stop and bid her good day, but she didn't bother with a reply as she hurried into the building and up to her large office. She took her private elevator all the way to the top where she was greeted by her automatonic secretary, whom she also promptly ignored. They were just machines, they didn't care, they weren't programmed to.

She sat down at her desk and awoke her computer terminal. It was going to be a busy day, even with having missed her first meeting; she had quite a few other appointments scheduled later that day and her office phone was already alerting her to several urgent messages. She directed the phone to disregard all calls from news agencies and any other outside lines, which significantly reduced the number of alerts.

She started by taking the call from the manufacturing plant that had been experiencing power fluctuations for the past week. The technician was happy to report that they had finally managed to redistribute the power coupling and would be able to get production back on track. But that was the only good news to be had that day. The next call was from Development, reporting that the latest versions of Policebots that the city had commissioned where having trouble integrating the Low-Level Sonic-Stun-Guns that were the entire basis of their redesign. Then she had to deal with Catering not being able to get enough crackers for the launch of the Technology Through the Ages exhibit that was opening in the lobby this weekend, a gala she was personally attending. How could anyone not find crackers in a major metropolitan area?

Hours later, after a few more disappointing phone calls, several urgent emails, and a meeting with Advertising, Sari finally had a half an hour free for lunch. She sat in her office to relax and turned on the news to be reminded of the reason that her morning had been even more hectic than usual. The station kept replaying images captured earlier that day of the "returning heroes", and for the first time in ages, Sari was reminded of her childhood. He was on the screen looking exactly like the hyperactive buzz-brain he had been ten years ago, making jokes and showing off for the camera. Bumblebee hadn't changed at all. She had.

She had changed more than she wanted to admit. Ten years was a long time on Earth and she had taken on quite a bit of responsibility since her father's death. She stared at the screen as Bumblebee continued to goof off, only resulting in him being yelled at by Ratchet. Quickly she turned off the television, before the yellow buffoon could do something to really embarrass himself. She was glad she had decided not to go the landing personally. She didn't think she could stand to see either of them in person. Or have either of them see her.

Needing a distraction, she stood from her chair and pressed a concealed button on the wall behind her desk activating the hidden door to her private laboratory. It wasn't as large as her father's had been, but she wasn't the technician that he was. She spent most of her time working as the CEO of the company and had found that she was very good at doing what needed to be done to expand the business into a worldwide power, something that her father had failed miserably at. She allowed for the hired technical specialists to deal with designing the new robots and automatons that the company's sales were based on, but she did still fiddle with her own projects when she could get the chance.

Lately she was focusing on rebuilding the robotic dog that her father had given to her as a child. Sparkplug had been crushed in a vital component of the main factory's manufacturing equipment during a tour that she was giving to some investors a few years back. At the time she had been more upset about how the damage to the machine would affect production than the destruction of her childhood toy, but lately she found that she missed the company of the mechanical dog.

She didn't have many friends. Even when she was a child she never really had, but everyone that she now knew either worked for her or bought from her. And it's hard to be friends with people you're trying to make money off of. She did talk with the Protectobots every now and then, but mainly only because Sumdac Systems was working as their main supplier of oil and other Earth fuels, so they didn't really count as friends either. There was one person she may be able to consider a friend, but even that relationship was based mainly in business dealings.

The rebuild of the dog was almost complete, all she had to do was finish the final lines of code and upload the data. She liked the programming more than the building of the hardware. The simplicity of the coding and the shear logic behind it all was a refreshing reprieve from the hectic life as CEO of a trillion dollar company. She especially liked when she was able to directly link up with the machines and completely submerse herself in the coding.

For twenty minutes she allowed herself to scan the data for any inconsistencies, before returning to the physical world and beginning the upload. She looked at her work and marveled over the fierce structure she was able to assemble. Long gone was the cute puppy that had kept her company on stormy nights when her father was busy in his lab, instead Sparkplug now looked like a vicious Doberman Pincher. He was more than just a pet, but a guard dog as well.

As she returned to her office she mused that Sparkplug's upgrade was indicative of the changes that she had gone through as well, at least if the newspapers opinions where anything to go by. The last article that she read had described her as a ruthless business-woman who wouldn't let anything stand in her way. Well, they were right. Long gone was the little girl who would play pranks and listen to loud music just to get a reaction out of others. Now she was an adult, accountable for thousands of people employed by Sumdac Systems and the millions of people who relied on their products daily.

She was ruthless because she had to be. This company would have gone under long ago if it was in the hands of people like Powell. Sure she was ruthless, but she was also responsible and she was in charge. She would keep this company afloat if it killed her. She devoted every hour of her day to Sumdac Systems and attaining her father's dream, and she'd be dammed if she let anything get in the way of that, even goofy yellow transformers who she had outgrown years ago.

Back in her office she looked out the large wall of windows, down at the city she and her father had transformed. Even from the top of her tower she could see the GarbageBots cleaning and a flock of Skyspy Videobots following something on the interstate. They may not have built this city but they did rebuild it, and she would rebuild the world.

Giving one more glance to the city and its inhabitants below Sari returned to her desk, to urgent emails and important meetings, to manufacturing crises and publicity appearances. Sitting in her well cushioned chair, she was atop it all.

Was she happy? No. But that didn't matter


	3. Chapter 3

I apologize if you find any of the Protectobots to be out of character or dislike any of the relationships that are hinted at in this story. Their TFA personas are based off of dou-hong's spec sheets, a link can be found in my profile; along with some awesome new art done by MamonnA.

Also, any good suggestions to what is under Blades berth might be included in future chapters.

* * *

She hadn't been there.

Why hadn't she been there?

She was supposed to be there. They were best friends and hadn't seen each other in ten stellar cycles. She was supposed to have been there. They were supposed to run to each other and she would leap into his arms and then they would spend the entire day and night telling each other of all the things that they had done while they were apart, like in those movies that they used to make fun of when there wasn't anything interesting to watch on TV.

But she hadn't been there.

Ratchet had told him that he was overreacting; she was a busy CEO now and probably couldn't get away from the office in the middle of the day. But still, she was supposed to be there.

He had even tried calling her, but his comm kept going straight to a Sumdac Systems automated voicemail.

He didn't know what to do. He was already pacing around the room he had been assigned in the old warehouse even faster than when he was stuck aboard the cargo ship. The Protectobots had outfitted the warehouse quite a bit since he had lived there, and inside it now had all of the comforts of Cybertron, including a fully stocked med bay, which was where Ratchet had hulled up, and real recharge berths. But none of that mattered, not even how the cocky helioformer had taken his old room. The only thing that mattered was that she hadn't been there, and he was starting to worry that he would never see her again.

He couldn't take it anymore. If she wasn't going to come to him, he would have to go to her.

He stormed out of his room and transformed in the hall ready to speed out of the warehouse and onto the highway, only to be stopped by a grouchy old voice.

"And where do you think you're going?" Ratchet asked, stepping out of the med bay and standing in the middle of the hall, blocking Bumblebee's path and forcing him to screech to a halt.

"Out," Bumblebee responded revving his engine impatiently.

"No, you're not. Not until Hot Spot debriefs us." Ratchet said crossing his arms.

"Oh come on Ratchet, its Earth. We don't need debriefing," Bumblebee humped, trying to find a way to get around Ratchet and down the hall before the old medibot had a chance to stop him.

"Earth's changed Bumblebee. It's not the same as we left it. You saw how much was different on the ride over, and that was only what could be seen from the highway. We have no idea what else has changed. They're a quickly evolving race, sometimes faster than they can handle, and this city is the center of their technological progress"

Man, could Ratchet sound any more like one of those pro-organics adds that was circling Cybertron? But he was right about how things had changed, on the ride over Bumblebee had been amazed at how much of the city was different. Their Earth alt modes didn't blend in with all the other human vehicles as well as they use to and there were several new buildings that didn't look anything like what had been there a few stellar cycles ago. But still, it was Earth. Bumblebee knew Earth. It had only been ten stellar cycles, it couldn't have changed that much.

Besides, he had to go find Sari. He was sure that everything would be fine if he could just see her again.

"But Ratchet, they'll be busy unloading the cargo ship all day. I can't wait that long," Bumblebee whined, inching forward in impatience.

"If you help out, it'll get done faster. It's either that or waiting in the base," Ratchet stated. "I'm headed out to help myself."

"But Ratchet, we're Elite Guard now. We don't have to haul cargo anymore," Bumblebee said as he transformed so he could use the full force of the pouty face on Ratchet, something that Sari had taught him long ago.

"Your never to high up to help out. Remember that Bumblebee." Ratchet turned to walk toward the main room, confident that Bumblebee wouldn't be running out to cause trouble anymore. "You coming, or are you gonna to continue to try and 'wear a grove in the floor' as the humans say."

"Yah, yah. Lugging around cargo, just what I wanted to do with my day. We should have brought Bulkhead, he's good at that kind of stuff. At least when he doesn't smash it," Bumblebee grumbled as he followed Ratchet down the hall.

* * *

How could there be so much cargo on such a small ship. The ship's crew and the Protectobots had been unloading cargo for a megacycle before Bumblebee was forced into helping, and they still weren't done two megacycles later. It didn't help that they had to haul everything fifteen hics from the park the ship landed in; apparently it was the only place clear of plants and buildings big enough to set down in. But that was still _so_ far. At least they didn't have to worry about keeping the base secret from Decepticons anymore, all of the humans that had followed them to the warehouse would have made that impossible.

A lot of the spectators had already left though, since it was getting late in the solar cycle; which was good because Bumblebee was getting tired of having to honk his horn at them every five feet to get out of his way when he was hauling the oldest, ricketiest trailer in all of Detroit. He swore they gave him the worst trailer they could find and filled it with the extra heavy crates, even if they insisted that he was getting the lighter stuff because his alt mode wasn't designed to haul as much as theirs where.

Still, after his eighth trip Bumblebee was exhausted and just wanted to go recharge, or play videogames. Videogames would be nice.

But thinking of videogames reminded Bumblebee of Sari. He still couldn't understand why she hadn't been at the landing. She must not have received his communication. Did she even know that he was on Earth? She had to have seen something on TV. There were plenty of Videobots and Reporterbots there when he got off the ship and he knew how big news it was whenever they did anything on Earth before they intergalactic heroes. They had to be even bigger news now, having defeated Megatron and saved the Earth. Not to mention all sentient life in the Universe, at least that's what everyone on Cybertron keeps saying.

When he had first gotten off the ship he had been so excited to be back on Earth that he showed the awestruck crowd some of the cool new moves that he had learned in his elite guard training and told some hilarious jokes about the ship's captain. He thought he would give them a taste of what they had been so desperately missing while he was on Cybertron, at least until Sari got there.

But she never showed up. He was so surprised when Hot Spot said they were ready to head out that he tripped in his "hide and evade" demonstration, face planting in front of all the recording cameras. He had even forgotten to do his transformation nice and slow for the humans to marvel at because he was wondering where Sari could be. On the way to the warehouse he had thought that maybe she was waiting for him at the base, not wanting to have to share him with everyone else. Which he could completely understand, he wouldn't want the share her either. Or maybe she'd even set up a surprise party for him. He knew she liked parties, and surprises, if the first sleepover they had was anything to go by.

All the way to the warehouse he had to work real hard to restrain himself so that he wouldn't speed all the way there, but he just wanted to get there already and see what Sari had waiting for him. When they _finally_ arrived, he had raced into the base in his alt mode while everyone else transformed outside and, when she wasn't in the main room, sped through the rest of the base looking for her. Blades wasn't happy when he found Bumblebee looking for Sari under the berth in his old room, which Blades had taken over after they left. He sure had some interesting things hidden under there that Bumblebee would have to see if he could "borrow" later.

Bumblebee put the final cargo crate down outside the warehouse for one of the stronger mechs to haul inside and heaved a sigh of relief. That was finally done, but it had taken so long that Hot Spot had decided to delay the debriefing until tomorrow morning. He was never going to see Sari. He tried to comm her, as he had been doing every chance he got that day, but it just went to voicemail, again. Slumping in defeat Bumblebee thought about just spending the rest of the evening sulking in his room. Possibly to loud music, sulking to loud music was the best. If he was unhappy the least everyone else could be was mildly annoyed.

But he was stopped in his trek to his new room by someone calling out to him.

"Hey, where you going Goldbug?" a happy voice hollered behind him.

Bumblebee turned around to see a very gray bot walking up to him. He was one of the Protectobots, but Bumblebee couldn't remember his name even having skimmed over the files they had been given of the Earth-based bots while still aboard the cargo ship. He wasn't really interested in learning any of the Protectobots names, that wasn't why he was on Earth, but he especially wasn't interested in learning this bot's name. Before Bumblebee had forcefully turned off the infopad, he had read that the gray mech was a motorcycle ninjabot studying Circuit-Su, and Bumblebee didn't need any reminding of the last time he saw a gray motorcycle ninjabot. Already annoyed with everything that had happened today, or more precisely what hadn't happened, and now being reminded of his lost friend, Bumblebee wasn't in any mood for the mech's cheerfulness or his nicknames.

"My name is _Bumblebee_," he gritted through his denta, sending the mech a glare to back off.

"Alright, alright," the mech held up his hands defensively. "No need to get testy, my little man. Just wanted to make sure you're coming to the party tonight. Besides you don't want to spend your first night back on Earth all by yourself do you?"

"Party?" Bumblebee asked as his mood completely changed. Maybe his earlier idea that Sari was throwing him a party wasn't such a bad one after all. It would explain why they had kept him out of the warehouse all day.

"Ya, a party. Hot Spot's been saving up energon and oil for weeks so that we would have enough to throw a real shindig," the mech got excited at Bumblebee's sudden shift in mood.

"Hot Spot," Bumblebee repeated.

"Yep, he wanted you guys to feel real welcome and all," the mech encouraged.

"So, no humans?" Bumblebee asked.

"Nope no humans," the mech happily supplied, before quickly withdrawing his earlier comment as Bumblebee visibly slumped at his words, "Unless you want to invite one, I'm sure Hot Spot wouldn't mind just, give 'm a call."

Bumblebee just hunched over more, so Sari wasn't throwing him a party, and there was no way he would be able to get a hold of her before it started, he had been try to contact her all day. It would just be a bunch of old bots he didn't really want to hang out with.

"Hey, don't be like that. We got high grade," the mech tried to cheer Bumblebee up again after his second sever mood change.

"I think I'll pass," Bumblebee mumbled and started heading back to the base, ignoring the bot who slowly followed him at a distance with a concerned look on his faceplates.

He walked through the main room, where Hot Spot and the police car where setting up for the party and some of the ship's crew already appeared to be overcharged. He walked past the storage room, where the ship's captain was doing a final inventory of the cargo they had brought to Earth. He walked down the empty hall towards his new room, where the echo of the mechs' laughing and shouting followed him just to remind him of what a bad mood he was in. But he stopped one door short, in front of Ratchet's assigned room. He stood there for a moment staring at the closed door. It had been such a long day, the old mech wouldn't have a problem if he just sat in his room with him for a little while, right? Just for some company. He knew the old grouch wouldn't be going to the party, he never liked parties. Besides, it would just be for a little while. Bumblebee slowly raised his servo to knock on the door.

"He's not in there," a gruff voice said.

Bumblebee jerked at the interuption and looked over to see Blades leaning against the wall at the end of the hall.

"He and First Aid are in the med bay, been there since they got off duty.'' Blades pushed off the wall and stalked towards Bumblebee. "Aid hasn't stopped talking about his _great mentor_ since we found out that you two were coming. I thought it was cute at first, you know. Talking about what that old rust heap did in the war and how he had declined a position as CMO to join a space bridge repair crew and watch after that piece of scrap decommissioned ship and all." Blades was now hovering over Bumblebee. "But if either of you get between me and Aid I swear I'll make your stay here the pits." He pressed his digit firmly into Bumblebee's chassis. "Got that pipsqueak?"

With that Blades pushed Bumblebee into the wall and stalked the rest of the way down the hall towards his room. Bumblebee, too shocked to react to the comment on his height, just stood where he was rubbing his canopy.

Maybe a party wasn't such a bad idea; at least he couldn't be cornered by an angry Blades there. Still in shock Bumblebee turned around and slowly walked back the way he came. Besides, he could _really_ use some of that High Grade now.


End file.
